Doctor Who Unbound - For the Greater Good
by the stargate time traveller
Summary: AU. Lily Potter prepares to make her final last stand against Voldemort... only for a mysterious Doctor to appear. (Full Fathom Five universe)


Disclaimer - I don't own either Harry Potter or Doctor Who.

Author's note - The Doctor in this is an alternative version who was voiced by the brilliant David Collings on the Big Finish audio drama "Full Fathom Five," where the Doctor in that reality was a Time Lord who believed the ends justified the means to the point he would murder anyone, especially if they were sorry about what they'd done because he genuinely believed they hadn't learnt from their mistakes.

Please enjoy!

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For the Greater Good.

Lily Potter clutched her baby boy to her chest, cursing Albus Dumbledore for dragging her and her husband into his Order of the Phoenix where they did nothing all the time except having boring, pointless meetings where nothing was really done and getting them involved to the point where their child was a target for that genocidal psychopath, Sirius for thinking it was a great prank suggesting Pettigrew be their secret keeper and 'protector' even if Peter was spooked of his own shadow, James and herself for letting it happen, and Peter for being such a wuss. But most of all she was cursing herself for not being able to press her husband into making arrangements to move them around the country; the thought of becoming a nomad to avoid Voldemort for the rest of their lives did not appeal to her, but it was better than being sitting ducks.

The moment the traumatised mother had waited and expected for months had finally arrived; Lord Voldemort had tracked them down, hoping to negate a prophecy before it could even begin to threaten him, and now he was in the house; she could hear him downstairs duelling her husband, who was hoping she would be able to escape in time.

After she grabbed her son, leaving his toys behind, trying to ignore his piercing cries as he was disturbed from his sleep by being picked up by her roughly without any warning and the explosions coming from downstairs, Lily had to balance her son against her chest while she took out her wand, immediately setting out to create a Portkey out of one of the toys in the nursery that would take them away from here; if she could escape to muggle London, perhaps she and Harry could get to Gringotts, get some help from the goblins….

The spell to create the Portkey failed.

What? Lily's eyes widened in horror and shock as the spell didn't settle into the toy like it usually would've done, but how? She had spent weeks studying the Portkey spell during her last couple of years at Hogwarts, and okay, it had taken her a couple of weeks to get the spell right, but with practice, she had gotten there until she had been able to cast the spell like it was second nature.

Lily pointed her wand at the toy again. "Portus!" she said forcibly, concentrating her magic with her Occlumency barriers to clear her mind of all distractions as she focused her mind on a general place for her and her son to travel to.

The same thing happened. The spell refused to work.

Rearing back in shock, Lily's mind raced even as she paid extra attention to the fight happening downstairs. Grimly she flicked her wand around the nursery, and she was furious when she discovered there were strong anti-Portkey wards around the house, and they were incredibly strong in this bedroom.

At first she was sure Voldemort had put the spells upon the house to stop the Potters escaping from his clutches once more like they had done three times in the past (she instantly put those thoughts out of her mind; she still had nightmares about those psychological battles she'd had with the Dark Lord), but there were a number of spells in this bedroom to stop anyone from getting in or out aside from using the doorway, Voldemort was powerful but even he couldn't apply these wards so close to her son if he hadn't been in here.

Lily's heart sank into the deeper recesses of her stomach as she realised who it had been.

Dumbledore.

It made sense. He had developed a rather unhealthy interest in Harry and Neville ever since this so-called prophecy had been announced, but Lily had never even begun to imagine the elderly wizard would want to take things to this level. He had known Voldemort would never stop trying to murder either her son or Alice's, but what the hell was he trying to do?

Not for the first time, Lily wished Dumbledore had given details about what the prophecy said, but the old man had kept his secrets too close to his chest. But she wondered what the old man gained from her and James die? What did he plan to do with her son if they did die? Lily swallowed in fear, a part of her that was still the same schoolgirl who had attended Hogwarts wanted to believe no-one, not even a headmaster, could be that callous.

_But then again Dumbledore was never that effective during his time at the school, was he?_ Lily closed her eyes as she remembered her last years at the school when Voldemort's poison was spreading everywhere, not just into the ears of those gullible idiots on the Wizengamot and the general public, to people who were annoyed with muggle-borns every day of the week, but also to the younger generation._ Yeah, he may have protected the school from the Death Eaters on the outside of the castle, but he never did a thing to stop the students who wanted to become Death Eaters from causing trouble to the muggle-borns, in fact, he turned a blind eye, talking about forgiveness and second chances to people who didn't do a thing to deserve such things._

Harry cried in her arms, shaking and fidgeting from fear as the loud shouts and flashes of light which crept up the stairs reached his eyes, and Lily snapped out of her reverie, and clutched her baby boy to her chest, hoping the cuddle would soothe him down even if this was not the best of times to be soothing to him.

As she held her son to her chest, her eyes closed though she picked up on a bright flash from downstairs which was a distinctive green, Lily looked around the room for inspiration; maybe if she used her wand to blast a hole in the wall after casting spells on her and Harry to allow them to breathe properly even with clouds of dust drifting and settling around them, and then use a simple levitation charm to get them out of here, but she wasn't sure if Voldemort was alone. If one of his more vicious followers was out there - she was prepared to fight to the bitter end to protect her son, but the thought of going up against someone as deranged as Bellatrix LeStrange did not appeal to her, but if Severus was out there, she would no doubt want to murder him….

Lily decided it was worth the chance, though she did consider simply casting the strongest notice-me-not and silencing charms on her and Harry; it wouldn't fool Voldemort for long, but it would possibly give them plenty of time, maybe enough for her to get her child out of the house before he caught up with them.

Just as she was making her plans, cursing herself, James, Dumbledore, Sirius and Pettigrew for their shortcomings, the door to the nursery exploded inwards, and she screamed in sudden shock and the sound startled Harry so much he screamed and cried just as loudly as the hinges to the door were ripped off.

After the drama of the door being ripped off its hinges and blasted out of the frame died down, Lily turned around and her eyes widened in horror and terror when she caught sight of the tall, thin figure wrapped in a black robe with a cowl obscuring most of his features, but Lily shivered when she looked upon that whitish grey face that looked like it came straight off a corpse left in the Antarctic, and those burning red eyes and those snake-like features made her feel like the devil himself had come out of hell. Maybe he had.

Voldemort regarded her coldly, but a sneer crossed his expression. "Ah, my dear Lily," he drawled in his cold voice that had never failed to put Lily on edge, "have you finally realised you cannot defy Lord Voldemort?"

Lily would have rolled her eyes if she hadn't been so scared, she had never been able to grasp why Voldemort spoke like a truly bad Saturday morning cartoon villain, or one of those particularly badly portrayed Batman villains though she did admire Julie Newmar's Catwoman and Burgess Meredith's Penguin even if she found the quality poor at times despite how fun it was, but she had always wondered to herself if Voldemort's need for self-reverence had been one of the reasons why she James, Alice and Frank had always managed to escape him.

The thought of her husband made her swallow out of fear, knowing he was likely dead even if she had been too distracted to notice if Voldemort had cast the killing curse at him or not, though she had seen the green flash from downstairs through the gaps in the doorway.

Voldemort seemed to take her fear and her lack of a proper reply as a 'yes' to his question, and he levelled his wand at her though she saw the way his eyes drifted down to the bundle in her arms. "And…your son…. the so-called prophecy child who is supposedly destined to end my reign…. Not that he will grow to become a threat to me!"

Lily instantly put her crying son back into the crib, holding out her wand, a number of extremely powerful and creative spells coming to the forefront of her mind as she went through her impressive spell repertoire, though she desperately wanted to find a way of getting her son out of here, preferably without Voldemort or Dumbledore figuring out where he was sent.

Her heart ached when she realised that if she did that, sacrificing herself to save him, he would probably never know who he really was until he attended Hogwarts, but she was a mother, and her child's wellbeing trumped everything else…

Lily swallowed and prepared to cast some of her more powerful spells off to distract Voldemort when she saw the evil wizard raise his wand… and then suddenly there was the sound of something Lily had never expected, a gunshot.

She watched in astonishment as Voldemort gasped in pain and surprise as he was clearly shot by the bullet, and he staggered around on the spot, a hand instantly clapped against the wound in his back; Lily knew enough anatomy to know the bullet was lodged somewhere in Voldemort's digestive system, but she didn't care.

Voldemort grunted in agony as he turned around, and the two magicians found themselves staring at a man who had suddenly appeared out of no-where who was standing in the doorway, holding a gun on Voldemort, dressed in a dark suit with a midnight blue velvet jacket underneath a black woollen jacket and dark trousers with a white dress shirt with a large dark green bow-tie. The man looked to be in his mid-forties, maybe early fifties, but it was hard for Lily to tell. He had a full head of dark brown hair on his head with wisps of red at the end, though it intermingled with streaks of grey, as well as an aged face that gave the impression he had seen and done a great deal in his life.

In his hand was a black gun, pointed straight at Voldemort, but the scary thing about the man, despite the fact she was eternally grateful for his intervention, was the lack of feeling on his face as he pointed the gun at Voldemort, though truthfully Lily felt nothing for the Dark Lord.

"What?" Voldemort whispered in pain; Lily hoped it hurt after all he had done, the families he had personally put to death simply because they had ignored everything he was selling, but she couldn't help but ask herself just how much pain the bullet was giving him when she had seen him endure magical exhaustion with all the spells she had seen him cast during battles with him. "Who are you?" Voldemort hissed out, pushing against the pain, but the man fired two more shots, one was fired straight into Voldemort's chest though from where she was standing it was hard for Lily to tell if the monster had been struck in the heart or the lung, she didn't care either.

The injury to the chest was bad enough, but it was the bullet wound to the Dark Lord's knee which finally brought him down. Lily watched as Voldemort nearly collapsed onto the carpet, exposing his bald head as his cowl was pushed back. He looked up at the man standing there, and he slowly began to lift his wand.

Lily lifted her own wand, not wanting the Dark Lord to kill her saviour. "Expelliarmus!" she shouted, and she flicked her wand and silently sliced the wand in half.

Voldemort had swung his head around in surprise at her sudden intervention. "No!" he screamed in rage when he saw Lily's spell slice his wand in half, but she ignored the Dark Lord's anger and went to pick up Harry, who started to scream and cry at the awful sound of Voldemort's shout.

The man, however, spared Lily a smile. "Thank you, Mrs Potter," he said appreciatively in a richly accented voice that rasped with age.

"You're welcome," Lily replied with a shy smile; she wasn't sure who this man was, and considering Pettigrew's betrayal she was slow to trust anyone at this moment in time. "Who are you? You have an excellent sense of timing."

"I am called the Doctor," the man replied, his tone completely final as if the matter was closed, "and as for my timing, thank you. I couldn't arrive to save your husband, but I was able to stop Voldemort before he was going to kill you."

Lily closed her eyes in sorrow at the loss of James, but she opened them again quickly; she didn't know what would happen if she took her eyes off of either of the men in this room. "How did you get here so quickly?" she asked.

"I came in a box," the Doctor replied simply, speaking quickly before she could ask him what he meant by that, "I came here to make sure the future changed."

"The future?" Voldemort began, his voice suddenly returning to its old strength as he used his magic to push the pain he felt away. "What would you know of the future?"

"A great deal, far more than you would ever be able to understand," the Doctor replied, looking down at the Dark Lord and pointing the gun straight into Voldemort's forehead. "I know if left unchecked you will destroy more of the world later after giving it a respite for a decade, but most of all I came here to right some terrible wrongs which are going to be levelled against young Harry over there," he added, lifting his eyes slightly to look at the baby.

"Harry?" Lily whispered fearfully, wondering what type of wrongs the Doctor was describing. "What about him?"

"I'll tell you in a bit," the Doctor promised as soothingly as he could, though Lily could tell whatever he had to say, she wasn't going to like it, and he looked down at Voldemort. The Dark Lord seemed to be recovering quickly, but the Doctor pointed his gun straight into his forehead again.

This time Voldemort seemed more confident. "You think you can kill me, you filthy muggle? I am Lord Voldemort, I am immortal-," Voldemort laughed, and just as he was about to go into a rant, the Doctor silently bent down and pulled something from around the corner of the doorframe he was standing in, and he pulled out a small rubbish sack. Without a word the Doctor upended it and out fell a number of objects Lily didn't automatically recognise; there were the remains of a ring, a little black book which resembled a diary that looked like it had been ripped apart with something incredibly hot which burnt away the pages, some kind of tiara that looked like it had once been beautiful, but now it looked like it was half melted, the remains of a locket, a large cup that resembled a football trophy, though it had only one handle while the rest looked like it had been exposed to some tremendous heat, and they littered the floor.

Lily was surprised when she heard Voldemort's angry scream, but without his wand, he wasn't that much of a threat.

"You're mortal, Voldemort," the Doctor said, "I destroyed all of your soul fragments; some of them weren't easy to get hold of, I can tell you. I commend you for your imaginative traps, but it was just unfortunate you hadn't bothered to ward them off against something that would be able to break through your wards."

"What? What was powerful enough to rip through the wards? You are only a filthy muggle-" Voldemort demanded, sounding very much to Lily he was on the point of frothing at the mouth with rage.

"Don't ever make assumptions about people. I used the sun, channelled the super-hot plasma into the various places; I used it to destroy your grandfather's excuse for a shack in Little Hangleton after I materialised inside it, and used the sun's energy to burn through the ring. I also destroyed the Inferi you'd left in that lake in the cliff, setting them free from their pitiful existence," the Doctor said, leaving Lily to wonder just what he was saying, "but I cannot let you live. Unlike Dumbledore, I do not play games."

With that the Doctor fired at Voldemort at point blank range, the bullet blasting Voldemort's head to pieces. Lily shivered when she watched the way the once feared Dark Lord just fell to the ground, completely dead.

The Doctor looked up at her. "I think you should leave Magical Britain, Mrs Potter," he said, though Lily could tell he wasn't making a suggestion, "I'd make arrangements to travel to Magical America or some other country."

Lily thought about it, and she saw there was some benefit to his ideas, though she wanted to definitely get some answers to her questions. "Why?"

"So you can raise your son without fear of other followers of Voldemort coming after him; I have taken care of the marked Death Eaters, but you can make a fresh start somewhere else without Dumbledore interfering. Dumbledore may mean well, but his habits of keeping the information a secret until it is far too late is not a good idea," the Doctor said, "and he even with Voldemort dead, there is no telling what Dumbledore plans to do next."

Lily stiffened as she remembered finding those wards on the nursery. "Did he stop me from leaving and taking Harry away?" she asked, though she still wasn't sure if she actually trusted the Doctor.

"Yes," the Doctor said bluntly, giving Lily the impression he preferred to be truthful in order to make it clear the matter was serious. "The prophecy Dumbledore heard was simple; a young boy born at the end of July had to be marked as the Dark Lord's equal, and the best type of marking would be something physical. Dumbledore knew you would get in the way-," he finished and Lily took over, her voice a whisper of horrified acceptance as she saw Albus Dumbledore as a man who was truly manipulative, "…so I had to die," she finished, her voice low and furious.

"Yes," the Doctor said again. "Dumbledore's plans for defeating Voldemort may have worked on a theoretical level, but there were so many things that would have gone wrong. The best thing for you to do now is to transfer Harry away from Hogwarts, and just send him to a different school."

"Oh, I'll do more than that," Lily pointed out, her mind already racing as she thought about the numerous things she could do to keep Dumbledore off her back and out of her son's life. "What about those things?" she asked, pointing at the collection of antiques on the carpet that looked like they'd had an argument with a furnace and an overexcited welder.

"Voldemort created soul pieces, Mrs Potter," the Doctor explained, "he split up pieces of his soul after committing a carefully prepared murder, all to make himself immortal; all it did was simply remove a large slice of his sanity until only a maniacal monster was left behind with very little sanity. Highly dangerous and unstable. When Dumbledore arrives to investigate, he will find the pieces on the ground, and realise Voldemort is truly dead."

Lily shuddered at the description of what these things did. She remembered him saying he had killed the Death Eaters, but she decided not to bother bringing the subject up with him. "What now?" she asked tiredly but determined; she didn't want to be here when Dumbledore turned up, there was no telling what would happen, what she would do to the bastard who had set them up, who had played games with them, and was planning on ruining her child's life just to make him into a weapon of war.

She needed time to get her plans right, and then she might be able to do something to make Dumbledore pay for what he'd done, but not right now; Harry was still vulnerable, and Dumbledore might get it into his head to play games with her son's life. She wasn't going to let him do that.

"Hmm?" the Doctor asked, looking at her questioningly.

"What should I do now?" she asked him.

"Get ready to leave this country, let the magical world clear this mess up," the Doctor replied, "but before you do go, make sure the Ministry doesn't place Mr Black in prison; when it comes out he was the Secret Keeper at some point, they will send him to prison for betraying you."

Lily wondered how he knew all of this, but she didn't even try to satisfy her curiosity because she could tell that he wasn't likely to tell her. Something else sprang to mind. "What would have happened to my son?" she whispered fearfully, almost afraid to know the truth.

The Doctor looked thoughtful for a second as though debating with himself whether to answer, and she saw that he quickly reached his decision to be open and honest with her; it was refreshing to finally be given a straight answer, after so long with Dumbledore holding secrets like the prophecy and manipulating this mess so Voldemort would kill both her and James just so her son would become a little soldier which wasn't even his fault, she was glad to be finally getting some answers.

"Dumbledore would have sent your son to an abusive home to make him meek and malleable," the Doctor replied at last without preamble, his expression of distaste making his thoughts on the matter plain, and Lily gaped at him in horror and disgust someone she had once respected would even think of going that far, but the Doctor was not finished, "and when it would be time for your son to be sent to Hogwarts, he would have his minions like Hagrid and the Weasley family tell him things about how the Slytherins are evil, and that they shouldn't be trusted while making him worship the ground Dumbledore walks on, keeping him isolated from the other houses and children who come from families; Susan Bones, for instance, won't really speak to him despite the fact you and Amelia get along, and he will have Harry go through one dangerous crisis to the next, risking his life to make him into a weapon to destroy Voldemort, who'd had a disturbing childhood himself."

Lily had been listening in petrified horror as the Doctor spoke, her mind conjuring up horrifying images of her son being forced to suffer for so long, both in and out of Hogwarts to turn her child into a warrior to fight a psychopath like Voldemort, though truthfully she wouldn't be surprised if the suffering drove her son into a Dark Lord more insane and twisted than Voldemort. It would be likely, given Dumbledore never seemed to learn from his mistakes. She had never wanted that future for her son, for any of her children.

"I think I'd better get ready to leave," Lily said quietly, her mind shaken by what she was hearing. She just had to get out, get away from Britain, get away from Dumbledore, the Order, the Ministry, and sort out James' funeral on top of everything else.

The Doctor nodded. "I think that would be for the best. I placed a barrier around the house that will give you the time you need to pack and to leave."

Lily nodded at him in thanks, but as they left the nursery and saw the obvious signs of spell damage, she realised James must have put up one hell of a fight. She started walking down the stairs to grab any books she had taken out of Potter Manor, but as she reached the last step she turned around to ask the Doctor something else, but he wasn't there. The Doctor had disappeared.

Lily stood at the bottom of the stairs as a chilly wind whistled through the house, blowing debris everywhere, and there was a bizarre wheezing, groaning sound that filled the air before it faded.

"Doctor?" she called out, but there was no sign of the man.

The Doctor had vanished completely, but Lily quickly put that out of her mind as she went around the house to get everything sorted in her mind, all the time visualising America and wondering to herself if she would ever see the Doctor again after he had saved her life, but she was going to be forever grateful towards him for having the life of her son from an awful life where Dumbledore would feel he could do anything and get away with it simply because he could.

No, she was going to welcome America.

But first she was going to have to put things right with Sirius and she hoped the Ministry paid attention for a change instead of making a complete mess of things….

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What do you think? Please drop me a review to let me know and if you've got any suggestions for more Unbound stories like this.

Until the next time...


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